Marx's Relevance for Today
Economic Update with Richard D. Wolff
Democracy at Work
4.8 • 2.1K Ratings
🗓️ 28 April 2026
⏱️ 31 minutes
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Summary
In response to questions about Marx's relevance today, this program explains how Marx's criticism of capitalism was unique (more micro-focused than macro-focused analysis). It shows how Marx's critique of capitalism differs from his critique of slave and feudal class systems, on the one hand, and from post-capitalist ("socialist" or "communist") class systems, on the other. Marx's analysis is shown NOT to prioritize the private vs public enterprises dichotomy that has been debated as "the issue" over the last century. Instead, Marx's relevance for today lies in arguing for a post-capitalist system that is different from the slave, feudal, and capitalist class systems it seeks to replace.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome, friends, to another edition of Economic Update, a weekly program devoted to the economic |
| 0:27.2 | dimensions of our lives and those of our children. |
| 0:31.8 | I'm your host, Richard Wolfe. |
| 0:37.0 | Before jumping into today's program, I want to make it clear that one of the purposes |
| 0:43.0 | guiding this program is to provide you with the information, the analysis, to go out and |
| 0:50.9 | share that with your friends, your coworkers, your neighbors, in other words, |
| 0:57.2 | to quadruple or quintuple our reach by making each of you that much more able to carry |
| 1:06.6 | the messages, to make the interpretations, and to affect the way we live. That's also the logic |
| 1:13.8 | behind the classes we offer, such as the Marxian class analysis one just recently completed |
| 1:21.4 | by myself in collaboration with Professor Sharam Azar of Bucknell University. Indeed, we're going to be having |
| 1:31.3 | a public question and answer based on that course towards the end of May. And you can find out |
| 1:39.6 | about all of our classes and these Q&A sessions and all the rest by going to our website, |
| 1:47.0 | Democracy at Work.Info. And again, it's to make you a partner, if you like, in the project |
| 1:56.4 | we're all engaged it. And please remember that by liking, subscribing, and sharing this video |
| 2:04.2 | with other people, you are helping us to educate, to inspire, and to help build the |
| 2:13.6 | movement for change that I think you all understand this country and this world we live |
| 2:21.4 | in badly needs perhaps more now than ever. |
| 2:28.5 | Okay, today's program is going to be devoted to answering a question many of you have sent to me. |
| 2:38.0 | And the question is, how does Marx, yes, Karl Marx, how does his work, his criticism of |
| 2:49.4 | capitalism, which is what he devoted his life to develop, |
| 2:55.0 | how does it speak to our times now? |
| 2:59.4 | Granted Marx lived back in the 19th century. |
... |
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